


Blood//Water

by brokenmemento



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Developing Relationship, F/F, Lies, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22761976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brokenmemento/pseuds/brokenmemento
Summary: Picks up at the tail end of episode 10. Speculation for season 2 on my part, partially based on a few minimal spoilers and the rest on my jacked up mind.
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 13
Kudos: 78





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> *I mean, other than the obvious, I really tried to stay in character. Hopefully, I have done these ladies justice and written something that seems probable within canon.  
> **Forget what you know about cashier's checks and pretend what Judy gave Jen is a real check  
> ***I know it's between seasons and the foot traffic here is not all that heavy as of right now. To those who wander in later and find this fic/take the time to kudos or like, thank you.

When she had ventured outside to stand by the pool, she had originally meant to only grab a glass of wine and deposit the dumb bird into the safe. She’d never intended to take Ted’s gun too. 

All along though, she had felt drawn to it, like it was whispering within the safe and speaking to her to let it free.  _ Take me, hold me _ , it had felt like she had heard with every pump and pulse of her heart. So when the noise came from behind her, she’d reached for it on autopilot and deposited it in her pocket like a certifiable loon.

But how fucking stupid had she really been though, now that Steve is standing in front of her spewing out bullshit? With every word that comes out of his mouth, Jen finds herself getting more incensed. She’d wanted to punch him in the face as he laid across the deck chair, but now her anger is blinding and she feels the heft of the metal in her robe pocket, a reminder. 

It’s only a logical progression of events when she pulls it on him, grips the thing all white knuckled and frantic heart. She only wants to scare the shit out of him but as more seconds pass, she realizes that she’s going to fucking shoot him and not feel a damn thing when she does.

“I’m a good guy, Jen,” he tries to reason. 

“No, you’re not a good guy,” she immediately rebuttals because he is probably the biggest piece of shit since Ted. Another man who wants the world and isn’t happy when he doesn’t get it. 

“You’re defending her and pulling a gun on me?” Steve says incredulously. 

“I want you to leave my house,” is what she gets out but then immediately scolds herself because if he does, she can’t shoot him, can she? And tonight, she’s really feeling like fucking something up. 

“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me where the fuck Judy is,” Steve yells and starts to come closer. 

She fires off a warning shot above his head and he jumps like a little bitch, ducking slightly and covering his head with his hands. It’s comical and Jen would laugh if she weren’t playing the other half of Arthur Fleck right now. 

“What the fuck? Are you fucking insane?” Steve cries and stays in a cowered stance. 

Time is against her now, she knows. She’s got a few minutes, tops, before she’s not just with Steve in this backyard, so she has to make the most of what comes out of her mouth and the actions she takes. 

“Oh, you’re questioning me on insanity when you kept fucking Judy, literally and figuratively? You’d verbally and emotionally abuse her, then worm your way back into her pants so you could be the big macho man? Like a broken record on repeat,” Jen spits out with venom.

“You think you know our lives so damn well? Well, you’re wrong. She’s got you groomed into thinking I’m the piece of shit when she’s just as guilty,” he says and his face is contorted in disgust. 

“That’s because you are a crappy person and you deserve everything that happens to you. And a lot of what won’t,” Jen breathes heavily, nostrils flaring. She’s running on pure adrenaline and her brain is working overtime in her head. “So here’s how this is going to go. You and I are going to make a deal.”

“You aren’t really in any position to be giving me an ultimatum right now,” Steve growls. 

“500k of yours and this gun say otherwise” Jen nods and a smile spreads wickedly on her face as she laughs without any mirth whatsoever. “I give you your precious money back and you put on a little show for me.” 

“You mean…”

“I mean I shoot you and you die,” Jen cuts him off and clarifies. Sort of.

“Look, I probably deserve a lot but death seems extreme.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up. I’m not going to actually kill you,” Jen rolls her eyes and sneers. She begins to take a few steps closer. “But I am going to shoot you and it is going to hurt like a son of a bitch. You’re going to fall into the pool and hold your breath like you never have in your pathetic life while Judy sees you face down and floating.”

He’s become more erect now, his shoulders thrown back and a look of utter disbelief on his face. He’s running a hand along his square jaw that Jen still finds a strong compulsion to rearrange completely with her fist. But the gun though…

For the first time since she walked out of the guest house, he is quiet and Jen really doesn’t have time for this because someone had to have heard the warning shot she fired off a few seconds ago. Or minutes? It’s all going incredibly quick and slow at the same time. 

“After that, you’re going to lay low for a while until I tell you everything is clear. Then? You’re going to disappear and no one is ever going to hear from you ever again.”

“Why?” he says with a twist of his face, a knitting of his eyebrows. He shakes his head and throws up his hands. “You’re fucking insane.” Pete and repeat.

“Yeah, maybe I am. But then you’ll be out of our lives.” Jen doesn’t miss the pronoun she uses and she’s pretty sure he doesn’t either.

“This is going to blow up in your face, mark my words,” Steve warns with a point of his finger. 

And what gave him the new set of stones to come at Jen like this? She’s the one still holding the gun on him, the one who is  _ supposed _ to have the upper hand and all of the control here. 

“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Jen shrugs as if she doesn’t care and why has her heart slowed so much? An eerie calm has settled in her chest and that’s because there is nothing left to say, only to do. 

Before he has a chance to open his mouth and say anything else, Jen jerks the barrel of the gun upward and punches two nearly neat shots into his body. The first one slams into his shoulder which sends him to his knees. The second hits closer to his neck and collarbone which makes his eyes go wide and a wheezing gasp come out of his throat. 

Blood oozes out of both wounds, a crimson trickle the blooms across the fabric of his suit jacket. Shock finally gets to him and he folds over, out cold. Jen watches him lay immobile for a few seconds and then sprints into action. 

Fingering the safety back on, she throws the gun in her pocket and runs over to Steve’s wilted body, grabs him by a sweaty hand and does everything in her power to get him upright. He proves too big for her to move so she’s forced to slap him out of his fainting spell. 

When her palm flattens across the other side of his face, he jolts awake with a cough. Jen reaches into her pocket and thumbs to the number she’s looking for. Her breath comes out ragged from effort and when she hears the meek hello on the line, her voice sounds positively perfect, just like a post cry. 

“Judy, I need you to come home.” 

She hangs up and pulls Steve up by the one lapel that isn’t a bloody mess. 

“Time to make your money back, you sack of shit,” Jen hisses and yanks him to his feet. With his help, of course.

She winds herself under the side of him that’s spotless and helps him over to the pool’s edge. The water shimmers in the faint light cast from the fixtures around the yard and soft luminescence shines from within the depths of the water. Thankfully, Steve’s heavy jacket and shirt have managed to staunch the bleeding somewhat, so no droplets splatter on the edge of the pool. 

Jen feels like her lungs are on fire and Steve zones in and out of consciousness beside her. It takes everything in her to keep him upright in wait, ready to seize the right second when it arrives. 

In the distance, a car door slams and Jen doesn’t have to guess to know it’s her. She’s taken an Uber or taxi back and it’s now or never if Jen is ever going to pull this little charade off. 

She slips from under Steve who surprises her by standing unaided. Backing away a little, she gives him a split second warning for what she’s about to do. “Time to go  _ Finding Nemo _ ,” she whispers gravely and brings a foot to his ass, kicking him with it to topple him into the water. 

The splash is a little loud but so are the hinges of the gate and sniffles coming from the other side of it. Jen smooths out her hair and backs away a little more, going glass eyed and stealing her nerves as Judy prepares to enter the yard. 

She feels her behind her before she actually sees her. The lightning like behavior of her emotions crackle under the surface of her skin, run through her veins in pure white energy. Jen absolutely can’t let Judy see that though, so she wills her face to remain impassive and blank. 

When Judy comes into her periphery, she finally turns to face her. There is a look of utter confusion mixed with equal parts bewilderment and caution passing over her features. 

Blood has started to ooze out in earnest now, discoloring the water into a murky red. Steve, believe it or not, is playing his part beautifully. If Jen didn’t know any better, she’d say he was actually dead, a victim of the shots she fired off minutes ago. In all actuality though, he’s only been face down in the water for 30 seconds at most. 

Jen shares a look with Judy and turns back to look at Steve, counting the seconds off in her mind. Calculates how long she’s got before he pops up for air and tells everyone the jig is up. 

“It’s Steve,” Judy finally says. 

“Yeah, well I owed you one,” Jen responds. 

She never gets a chance to say anything else because she’s being hurtled backward, totally putting a kink in her plan. 


	2. Part II

Before she knows it, she’s being shoved into Ted’s old studio, no Judy’s living area,  _ no _ complete and utter wreckage because she had a breakdown after Judy confessed to killing her husband, didn’t she? The two of them are so close and Judy is everywhere-on the skin of her hand, gripping the soft gray of her robe, exhaling and inhaling the same air, and brown curly strands tickling the edge of Jen’s nose. 

Just as Jen leans in, Judy backs away and begins to wear a path in the floor by walking back and forth. Jen chances a quick glance behind her to the open door. Hopefully, Steve has gotten his shit together and is smart enough to take in a little air while the two of them are out of sight. Jen jerks her attention back to Judy when she starts to talk. 

“What are we going to do? Shit, what are we going to do?” Judy repeats like a mantra, so much so that Jen can’t stand it anymore.

She has to do something to get things back on track, to not fuck up the plan on her end since it was her grand idea in the first place. Jen grabs her mid-pace and brings her so tightly into her body, she’s sure she’s probably hurting her a little bit. Cupping a hand over her mouth for half a second, she revels in the soft puffs of air hitting her palm and folds into herself. 

“Please, just be quiet,” she whispers and moves the hand away. 

“Jen, I don’t know what to do,” Judy cries, tears forming at the corners of her eyes and falling down in earnest.

She isn’t supposed to know what to do because this is all on Jen now. Well, she and Steve are the new fucked up team with secrets because Jen has rid Judy of that burden to carry, is working to alleviate it still. She’s absolutely inside out of herself tonight anyway, so when she finds herself leaning in to press an assuring kiss on Judy’s cheek, it shouldn’t surprise her (and doesn’t really) that they both move off course and are grazing one another’s lips on this fucked up night. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Jen backs away and rests her forehead against Judy’s. But no, they won’t because she’s already got the whole thing down. “I mean, I will. I’ll take care of this and you don’t have to worry a single bit because I can make this all go away.”

“What? How?” Judy says, still wrapped in Jen’s arms, her own hand going up to wipe at her tear stained face. 

“Shhh,” Jen soothes and does her own wiping with the hand that isn’t busy holding. “I’m not involving you in any of this from now on. I just felt like you needed to know what happened. But I’ve got a plan. I just need to get rid of the body...”

“They’ll figure it out!” Judy says quickly, her voice inching higher into hysteria.  _ They _ no doubt being the cops. “I’m helping you.”

“No!” Jen shouts and begins to feel the heat rising in her own body at the thought of everything falling apart. 

She’s done this for Judy, for the both of them. It’s her gift to the pair of them, a fucked up, wrapped and delivered present she just needs to shoo off into hiding and then oblivion. Judy will understand it all someday because Jen is going to make her, just like Judy came to explain Ted. They’ll be even then and can finally move on with their lives together. 

Jen runs a hand down the side of Judy’s face, takes in her devastating beauty even standing amongst chaos. She practically melts with Judy leans in, nuzzles the downward sweeping touch of Jen’s. With a small smile, Jen feels her heart expand exponentially. 

“You’ve already done so much for me,” Jen whispers and leans in again even closer. She rubs her forehead against her, speaks the next words into Judy’s hair. “You’ve already been to jail for me once. Never again.”

“Jen, please,” Judy pleads and reaches out to hold Jen’s face in her palms. 

Her face is equally as pleading and Jen wants nothing more than for her to lean in and take everything away with her mouth. The old her would have been repulsed by the feeling. The new her needs it almost more than breath. 

But it has to wait. It has to wait because there’s a body floating in her pool and  _ shit to get done _ . The next thing she says aches her to the bone.

“I need you to go, now, before the cops or anyone else shows up. I need you to go and let me take care of this. You have to trust me. Trust that I know what’s best,” Jen says as she tucks Judy’s hair behind her ear. 

Judy nods mutely and Jen is thankful for that as she pulls her phone out to hopefully catch the Uber that just dropped Judy off. She gives instructions on finding a motel for the night, promises to call when everything is done, and sends her out a different way so that they both don’t have to shuffle her by Steve’s hopefully still immobile ass. 

When Jen has deposited her in the car and watched it turn on the next street, she bolts to the backyard again and grabs a skimming net that usually collects debris, slapping Steve in the back with it. He pops up and splutters, coughing and hacking water out, lips moving like a fish as he works to wipe wetness out of his eyes with his one good hand. 

“Get the fuck up here,” Jen hisses, only partially grateful he isn’t dead. The other half still wishes he were. 

He pathetically flounders until he gets to the edge of the pool and Jen leans down, heaves with all her might to help pull him out of the water. When he’s panting on the grass, she scoots up off of her hands and knees to hover over him. 

“What the fuck, Jen? I’m not an Olympic swimmer or Navy SEAL. I don’t deep dive in my free time or have a never-ending lung capacity. I could have died for all you knew,” Steve whines. 

“And you’d have been doing everyone a favor,” Jen snaps and kicks him in his Gucci loafer. What a waste...

Jen backtracks into the guest house, grabs the check, and then makes her way to stand over Steve again. She makes an elaborate show of tearing it up and shoving the giblets into his lapel pocket-the side where she took two chunks out of him. A pound of flesh.

“There’s your stupid fucking money. I never wanted it anyway, but it was sweet of Judy to at least try to ease my pain and suffering in some way. You’d have just fucked me over completely. ‘Oh, sorry, Jen. I just helped run your husband over and left him for dead, but fuck you very much.’ Yeah, what a peach you are.” 

“I already told you…”

“What you thought would ease your conscience. Yeah, I know. Listen up because here comes the next part of your grand performance. You’re going to liquidate your assets and let me put your properties on the market so I can get a fat commission of their sale,” Jen begins. 

“What?! No way, absolutely not,” Steve cries and tries to sit up. 

Jen yanks the gun from her robe pocket again, thumbs off the safety and cocks back the hammer. He falls down on the ground in supplication, hands sheepishly in the air. 

“Right now, you’re only dead to Judy so how about we keep it that way and you live to see another day, hmm? I’ve got a lot of life left to screw you out of,” Jen warns. 

“And what happens when I do that?”

“You’re going to lay low. Take enough cash out to survive on until I tell you the coast is clear. I need to make sure Judy doesn’t panic and go to the cops or something stupid like that. When the coast is clear, you can fuck right off to god knows where and that will be the end of all of this.” She waves the gun around for dramatic effect and makes a face. 

“You’re a psycho,” Steve murmurs but it lacks any punch really. 

“Eh, well,” Jen shrugs and then puts a house-shoe covered foot on top of his wounds, listens to him hiss in pain with satisfaction. 

This fucking guy…

He eventually limps off into the night, arm dangling like a rag doll at his side. Jen glances to the ground, sees the crumpled white fleck laying near her feet. Bending over, she picks it up and brings it to eye level. 

The boxy print of her first name and partial last fill her eyes. She sighs and deposits the scrap into her robe. Right beside the gun.

*********************************

It’s been three weeks since that night at the pool and Jen slinks down the hall of the motel. She delicately knocks on the door to signal her arrival but scans a key card seconds later to let her in without waiting for an answer. 

Sneaking around hasn’t been easy, but it’s had to become a necessity with Judy around and all.

After the incident, Jen had to do major damage control and tie every loose end she could think of so that Judy didn’t try to tug one apart. It had taken countless hours of explaining, consoling, and assuring that everything was fine. That nothing would ever be done with the authorities. That there was no other shoe waiting to drop. 

She makes a face as she comes through the door. Steve has his shirt off, the puckered wound healing on his shoulder and chest, but still various shades of purple. Jen reaches into her purse and tosses some medical supplies at him then crosses her arms. 

“Put a shirt on,” she commands and waves to where it sits on a nearby chair. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he grouses and works to pull it on but with great effort. 

Jen leaves him to it and pulls open the sliding glass door that leads out to the balcony. After what seems like forever, he ambles out past her and leans against the edge, squinting against the sun. 

“How casual chic of you,” Jen says with a raise of her eyebrow and motion of her hand up and down his khaki and checkered shirt combo.

“No need for a thousand dollar suit anymore,” he smiles sarcastically. His face changes then and gets more serious. “How’s Judy?”

“That’s not a question you get to ask,” Jen says and holds up a finger.

“I’m not asking to weasel my way back. I still remember getting shot, thank you,” Steve motions to his bum shoulder. “I’m genuinely wondering how she is handling all of this.”

“I’ve got an offer on your properties. Not exactly what I was wanting but the jerks are low balling me a little. For the sake of time and a colossal headache, I’ve accepted both in order to speed up your farewell tour,” Jen announces. 

He looks more than surprised. Dumbfounded would be a good word and Jen cocks her head to the side in a silent question. 

“I just thought it would take more time…”

“You should be thanking me. You’ve been holed up here for the last 21 days. I figure you’re about tired of me playing medic and pharmacist, so now you can be on your merry way,” Jen smiles like sunshine. And rainbows coming out of a unicorn’s ass by the way Steve is looking at her. “Do we have a  _ problem _ here?” 

He leans forward, pushing himself off of the edge of the balcony. Stalking forward, he gets a little closer than Jen would like, but she stands her ground. She doesn’t budge an inch as he brings his right shoulder near hers in an almost touching manner. 

“Are we ever going to talk about the real reason for you doing all of this?” he has the balls to say and Jen steadies her voice before it comes out. 

“Another thing you don’t get to ask,” Jen glares at him. 

“This isn’t about paying for Ted anymore, is it? It hasn’t been in a while. You want me out of the picture so you can move in on Judy.”

“Watch your fucking mouth,” Jen hisses. 

“Was that your intention all along? Getting me off of her so you could get on? Breaking us up and leaving me shot and bleeding while the two of you run off into the sunset?”

“Who do you think I am, fucking Yoko Ono? The two of you weren’t the Beatles. Hell, you didn’t even have a nontoxic relationship, much less something resembling stable,” Jen laughs. 

“Oh, and you do? She killed your husband and you’ve set her up to believe you’ve done the same. How can you ever think that this will work itself out to whatever it is you have in your delusional mind? Are the two of you just going to magically become murder wives after I’m out of the picture?”

Jen is so tired of all of this and she can almost imagine what tomorrow will feel like when she doesn’t have to wake up and worry about seeing his face. Or have to worry about seeing it ever again. Ice settles against her heart and she sends him a look that shoots daggers everywhere. 

“Gather your shit, leave this town, and never come back,” she says with every bit of control her body owns. “If you do, the next bullet I send your way won’t be for show.”

Spinning on the heel of her boot, she doesn’t wait for him to respond. Of course, he has to try and get the last word in edgewise. 

“This is dark, even for you Jen!” he calls after her. 

“Yeah, well, I’m not me anymore anyway,” she says nonchalantly and throws him the finger as she walks out the door and out of his life forever. 

Good fucking riddance. 


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some reading material for you if you've found yourself with many days off coming up. Warning: sort of thin on plot compared to the last two chapters but *points to rating*

“Hey, Jude, can you bring the salad off of the kitchen island?” Jen calls from the dining area. 

She finishes lighting the two taper candles in their holders, waving the flame of the match out with her hand. Judy appears with the crystal bowl, her eyes brightening when she sees the spread that Jen has set up. 

“What’s the occasion?” Judy smiles sweetly. 

Six months of no  _ Steve _ , Jen wants to say.  _ Hopefully going on a lifetime _ . Doesn’t. Instead, she feigns ignorance of knowing exactly how many days have passed since she tried to get her life back together. 

“Oh, nothing really. I just wanted us to have a nice meal together since Charlie and Henry are at Lorna’s for the evening,” Jen shrugs as if it’s just any old day. 

Things have changed since Steve has been gone though. Of course, they were bound to change. Jen had anticipated as much but what she has to pinch herself almost every day over is how  _ well _ it’s all been going. 

Despite living in one of the most uppity neighborhoods in the suburbs, not one single moron had called the cops that night. Maybe they thought it was a couple of teenage hooligans setting off firecrackers, maybe not. Maybe they assumed it was a gunshot and didn’t want to involve their perfect lives

Whatever the series of thoughts, or not, no one had shown up at Jen’s door that night which made her laugh uncontrollably until she cried, falling asleep with her face pressed into the puffy white fabric of her comforter. 

Judy sets the bowl down in the middle of the table and Jen blinks her eyes and shakes her head to jolt her out of her thoughts. She watches as Judy sits down, raking her hands underneath her skirt to adjust it as she comes to rest on the chair. The candlelight flickers on her face and Jen finds herself staring, not hiding the fact very well. 

It’s becoming increasingly harder to keep things neutral, to not let on the complicated things she’s been feeling for longer than six months. Compartmentalizing is a necessity though, so Jen tries to mask the heat in her face and flutter in her heart. 

However, as the meal progresses, Jen finds her food getting grainy in her mouth. It’s harder to swallow the wine with the growing lump in her throat. And really, Jen has never felt this way in her entire life, not even when she and Ted were hot and heavy in the beginning before everything went cold and fucked. 

The golden tan strip of Judy’s skin close by is what has rendered Jen worthless. She hadn’t meant to look, much less even internalize that she’d seen it, but the dress that Judy had tucked under her had ridden up with each shift of her legs and hips. Glancing over during their conversation, Jen had been met with the expanse of it, had lost herself in the thought of skimming a finger along it, had choked a little on the sticky sweetness of the wine as Judy had jolted her back to reality. 

“Hey, maybe we could do one of those old fashioned sleepovers tonight, like when we were kids! Maybe find some Facts of Life, get our pajamas on, and have a glass of wine to relax after this?” Judy looks downright giddy at her idea. 

Jen loses herself for the thousandth time of the night, chastises herself internally for losing her shit so often, for not being more together at the thought of the two of them falling asleep beside one another. How does Judy look when she dreams? Does she talk in her sleep or spend the midnight hours reaching for a body that isn’t there anymore like Jen does? 

She wonders if Judy could help her stop looking for Ted in her subconscious. To help herself officially end him in her, much like she had ended in him before their marriage took a header and was dashed on the rocks. 

“I don’t think sleepovers usually involve alcohol,” Jen says wryly and tilts her head. She throws Judy a smirk. 

“This is the grown-up, mommy version then,” Judy says with a wink.

“Oh, and what else happens at these grown-up, mommy versions of sleepovers?” Jen tries for jest but it comes out throaty. She hopes Judy doesn’t notice so she buries her face in her wine glass to cover. She shot this woman’s significant other. How is she sitting here flirting and eating a meal like everything is peachy-fucking-keen?

“Oh, so much,” Judy smiles mischievously. “Think of it like Vegas. What happens at them, stays at them.”

Jen laughs but her heart is going too fast to really be safe or healthy. She finds herself pushing pieces of her meal around on her plate, willing time to speed up. 

It’s not that she has any intentions when the two of them head upstairs, but even the chance of finally being able to touch Judy in a way she’s been dreaming of more and more, behind closed doors, seems wholly wonderful.

She manages, somehow, to make it through the rest of their meal. Manages to find air to inflate her lungs and blow out the candles on the table. The hot water on her hands as she does dishes calms her a little, but as she watches Judy put a bottle with a wet paper towel in the freezer to chill, she tries to steady every part of her mind and body.

They dry the dishes in relative silence, easy looks passing between them with small smiles. Before Jen knows it, they’re climbing the stairs with a glass in each of their hands, the chilled bottle gripped in Judy’s small fist as they make their way to Jen’s room.

Once they’re there, Jen opens the door slowly and lets Judy follow behind her. She makes her way across the expanse and sits the glass down on her dresser, takes the loops out of her ears and lays them down atop the surface. Judy plops down behind her onto her bed and grabs the remote nearby, punching it on and getting the station ready but keeping the volume intentionally low so she can be heard over it.

“When is the last time we watched  _ Facts of Life _ together?” Jen asks. She sets to work on her routine for bed, hyper-aware of what she’s doing and what it feels inevitably like she’s moving toward. 

“I guess it was the night on your outdoor patio. When I accused you of being bougie in not so many words,” Judy smiles and looks back at the scene on the screen. 

“Bougie?” Jen makes a disgusted face and grabs her t-shirt and pajama pants combo from nearby. “Did you  _ see _ where you used to live?” 

Judy’s face falls a little and Jen curses inside her head, not meaning to bring up the-one-who-should-stay-forever-unmentioned because that’s the last thing she needs with half a calendar year behind them without even an uttering about him. Jen sighs heavily and points toward the bathroom. “I’m going to get changed. Feel free to grab something more comfortable.”

She retreats to the bathroom and closes the door quickly, head falling back against her robe hanging from the hook. Deciding not to wallow in her words, she dresses and exits the room with discarded clothes in hand. “I can’t guarantee that I will be able to stay awake through all of the episodes,” Jen begins but then freezes when she sees Judy standing over her dresser with a pair of pajama bottoms death gripped in her right hand...and a small piece of paper in her left. 

Bile rises in Jen’s throat and  _ fuck, shit, damn _ because why is that still there? Jen remembers standing in the mirror that night, reaching into her pocket to find it, pulling it out and flicking it into the air. She’d shed her robe and collapsed, never thinking about that dumb piece of the check ever again. Now it’s pinched between Judy’s thumb and forefinger. 

“Jen, what’s this?” Judy’s voice is small, meek. Jen doesn’t answer the obvious. “Where is the rest of it? I just assumed you never found it. But you did.” 

The lump that’s formed in Jen’s throat is titanic and she feels like she’s going down on a sinking ship as she scrabbles in her brain for  _ something _ to tell Judy if this inevitably moves forward. Which of course it will. 

“I found it in Henry’s bird,” Jen admits. Which is the truth, sure, but there’s a ton she’s left out too. 

“Yes,” Judy says slowly. “I delivered it to his choir practice. I knew you wouldn’t see me, but I just had to get it to you somehow even though…” her voice trails off and her face is contorted in the silent agony of dealing with oneself. Jen knows it all too well. 

Jen nods tightly, remains immobile. 

“You tore the check-up,” Judy continues and again, Jen finds that denying that would be playing incredibly obtuse, which she is most certainly not. She knows way more than she should and that feels weighty now as she stands in front of Judy and can’t help but itch inside her own skin, like Judy can see the truth stamped all across the surface of her.

“I did,” Jen answers like molasses, careful. The heat in the room is causing sweat to prickle at her temples, on her chest. There’s no way she makes it through this without getting completely fucked.

“Why would you do that? I was trying to help you. Steve owed it to you.  _ We _ owed it to you,” Judy shakes her head. She plays with the jagged edges of the paper and Jen thinks she is going to lose her shit.

Stalking over to her, she grabs the paper out of Judy’s hand and flings it behind her blindly. Her hands are clammy, but she grips Judy’s tightly anyway, leans in and tries to get her line of sight to focus on her. When Judy won’t look up, her gaze stuck on their feet, Jen reaches up and gets the round curve of her jaw in her fingers, feeling the smoothness of her skin. She lets out an involuntary sigh.

“Jude, what am I going to do with you?” Jen says with a head shake of her own. She’s too close for good comfort, but it's all heat and things are bubbling in her throat that she can’t contain. The truth is on the tip of her tongue because Judy is looking at her with those doe eyes that Jen has never been great at shutting out and down.

That’s when Jen notices Judy’s hand in a fist by her side. Jen should have guessed if Judy found that dumb piece of paper, she would also find what else was stuffed with it. Jen taps Judy’s closed fist and the fabric unfurls from her hand. It catapults Jen back to watching blood trickle from Steve’s wounds and she swallows hard. 

Judy goes from shifty to assertive, holds the pocket square up to Jen’s eye level. “Care to explain this?” 

“Not really,” Jen shrugs and mumbles but then Judy is shoving her like Jen did roughly after Judy confessed the truth and showed up at that open house. 

“You’re ridiculous, you know that? I spend every night for the last six months worrying about you. I lie awake at night and wonder,  _ oh my god, is Jen going to ever get caught? _ or  _ how can I cover for Jen if this ever goes south? _ and here you are with evidence to prove your guilt! I’ve been here before. I’ve lived this life already worrying about myself and now I just make myself sick over…”

“I mean…”

Judy throws Steve’s pocket square in her face, akin to a soft slap. Jen reels a little but grapples for it before it falls to the floor. 

“You could be in jail right now. You could have a cellmate who snores and steals your stuff from the commissary and tells everyone that you’re her prison bitch girlfriend,” Judy says, clearly off to the races on her Orange is the New Black fantasy where Jen is some backward version of Alex and Judy is most definitely Piper. 

Jen’s lips quirk and her tongue darts out at the thought of shoving Judy up against grimy bars and putting on a show for everyone to see. They’d have everyone talking, a glorious scorching fire taking out everything in its path. 

“Maybe they’d give us adjoining cells. Could make conjugal visits fun,” Jen raises her eyebrow and Judy gasps a little bit because this is the most direct Jen has ever been in acknowledging that maybe there’s a little more under the curled surface of their dynamic. 

“Don’t joke,” Judy warns, eyebrows knitting together. She’s trying for a hard edge and Jen wants to laugh out loud. It’s so damn cute and charming and Jen feels instantaneous warmth pooling in her chest. 

“You know what’s not a joke? When I punched three bullets into Steve to get him out of our lives,” Jen’s voice goes low and the world must be stalling out because suddenly space and time are suspended. “I wanted him to be gone so bad, it’s like I willed him into existence on my lawn that night. And when I kicked him into the pool and dragged him back out after you left, I had to use everything in my might to get him out of the water. Even tugging on this stupid thing,” Jen balls the fabric up and tosses it behind Judy as hard as she can. 

Realization has bloomed across Judy’s face, a product of Jen’s words. She’s being callous, but she aches in lots of places for lots of reasons and what she wants from Judy feels wrong, wrong,  _ wrong _ , so it’s easier to destroy that too, right? 

“I could just…I just want to…” Judy stutters, hiccuping the words through tears because she knows now and Jen shrugs off the weight of a thousand secrets rolled into one colossal lie. 

Jen braces, waits. Ready for whatever is about to come. While she expects the length of Judy’s palm across her cheek, Judy never even lifts a hand. She’s still choking on her words. 

“You just want to know what?” Jen sighs. She brings a hand to her forehead and rubs, a headache on the horizon and beginning to pulse between her eyes. 

“Why?” Judy asks and there is palpable agony behind it. Jen feels it like a dull knife being shoved into her rib cage. She opens her mouth but no sound comes out. At this, Judy repeats the question which is raised what seems like an octave each time it’s asked until she’s shouting it and Jen is shouting back. 

“Because I’m fucking in love with you, okay!” Jen finally screams back and the room falls deadly silent. 

Jen watches as Judy’s jaw clenches, so not the reaction she was hoping for but she’s being an asshole so she supposes she deserves it. They stand tensely, albeit for very different reasons. Jen’s heart is working too hard inside her chest, weirdly polar opposite of how she felt when she fucking shot someone. 

“How can you even say something like that after you just admitted that Steve isn’t really dead? You’ve let me believe that lie for six months,” Judy says in disbelief.

Jen wants to fly through the roof at the statement, mentally caught in a tit-for-tat scenario that ends uglier than she wants this to be. Instead, she opts for a calmer approach. She chances a step closer to Judy, invading her space a little. The atmosphere around them is like being in a vacuum, the air sucked clean away. 

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Jen announces, sounding more sure of herself than she actually is. “After, you can punch me, tell me to fuck off and run find Steve wherever he’s at, or whatever. But maybe you’ll understand why I did all of this in the first place.”

It’s as much of a warning Jen supposes Judy probably expects and thinks she deserves at the same time. Steve has done such a number on her, Jen isn’t sure someone can ever recover from that type of trauma. And really, she shouldn’t have recovered from her own either, much less fallen for fifty percent of the reason she’s a widow and one hundred percent of the possibility that she is into women now.

Jen’s eyes flutter shut with the softness of butterfly wings, but her mouth touches Judy’s in slick fire and warmth. 

It’s not the first time she’s kissed a woman. She was young once and did attend college, but this is the first time she’s done it and it meant something. The first that even the awe and danger in it, the duplicity of the act, can rearrange the very flow of her life as she knows it. 

Judy’s lips taste like chapstick, the inside like wine as Jen pushes boldly in with her tongue. Her fingers curl around Judy’s elbow and she’s farther away than she would like to be, would love to bask and revel in the feel of breasts against her own chest. To feel the phantoms of what she used to have on a body she knows she can love without end. 

Jen puts enough room between the two of them to let a choice begin to bloom within Judy. Gives pause to thought and movement forthcoming. She holds Judy and waits for whatever is next. 

Brown eyes glisten with tears like raindrops gripping the corners of eyes and Jen fights the urge to wipe everything away and remake a world between the two of them. Instead she is immobile and bargaining inside of herself how this night can be salvaged. But then she’s being launched backward with heels digging in the carpet, the press of Judy’s mouth blissfully against her again. 

Restraint ends. Permission sags. 

Jen traces her fingers over the once exposed area that she’s had to live with an image of for painful hours. They bend to hook in the hem of her dress and then press pressure points into the sides of her thighs. As much as she has thought she’s ready for this, her hands stall out before they get to the curve of Judy’s backside.

The momentary hesitation pierces the haze of choking lust, just enough for Judy to disengage from Jen’s lips and back away. She’s too close still but incredibly far away and Jen can’t piece together enough sense to know what to do next. Judy’s gaze flicks over to the dresser and Jen’s eyes follow her. 

She doesn’t just walk, she  _ saunters _ over to the edge of it and glides her hand slowly down its surface until she reaches the middle. Jen wants to ask what’s happening, comment to Judy not to fuck with her, tell her the kiss meant nothing much instead of kind of everything. But then Jen loses her will to swallow or speak or do anything else with her mouth other than let it go slack. 

Judy turns to face away from Jen, her hands lean into the wood and she bends at the waist. In the mirror’s reflection, Jen can see her dark eyes looking back to Jen’s wraith-like body cemented to the floor. As if a match has been struck, flickering to life, Judy gains the gumption to remove her hands from the dresser and grab the fabric to her dress. Her arms shift upward and she reveals herself inch by glorious inch. 

Kicked in the flanks so to speak, Jen doesn’t wait because she’s not herself, a ghost operating her body, or no, maybe she is exactly who she’s always been as she’s closing the gap between them again and taking Judy’s hair away from her shoulder to expose skin. To land her hot breath on it and her shaking digits where Judy has uncovered. 

Bunching the dress around Judy, Jen traces everything. Thighs, hips, a belly that goes concave when she reaches it. Her own body is glued to Judy’s who in turn, is being shoved roughly into the dresser. 

“Can I?” Jen pants against the fibers of brown hair and the curled shell of her ear. It’s a question of access, of wanting to be in a place so badly, even asking it is agonizing in its own way. 

But then her hand is being guided along the silky path of Judy. Is dipping low and reaching. Jen feels her knees buckle a little at the sensation but retains enough to work with the other hand to remove the dress completely. 

Judy is the woman Jen has known she was all along: beautiful. Yes, it’s due to her kind heart, her never-ending ability to give and give and take so little for herself. But it’s also because of this, of her gorgeous body now partially on display and Jen can’t imagine this is the life she would ever get to have after all the fucked up shit she’s done. 

Maybe they both needed to lose in order to be ready to have. Perhaps Ted was just a door to this whole other life she had sampled and stuffed down, a split version of herself down the middle. When the bullet left the chamber of Ted’s gun, maybe it snuffed out the rest of the complacency she had been living and threw her into a wild, wild existence. 

Judy is before her in not much of anything. A scrap of fabric covers her backside, a sheer bra scooping her breasts wonderfully upward. “Everywhere,” Jen groans which really means  _ can I touch you everywhere? _ and then there is no longer two of them, just one. 

Jen has practically touched all over-run her thumbs across the roundness of Judy’s nipples, brushed her fingers delicately to feel the slope of her pubis, the curve of her backside. 

“Bed, now,” Jen orders. It’s breathily punctuated, labored in delivery. 

If Judy thinks they’re moving fast, she doesn’t say. She spins around as told and kisses Jen all the way to the boundary of the mattress. She enters it with an absolute lack of grace and an utterly enchanting raw need of someone about to get fucked. 

Jen pulls her own shirt over her body, leaves it on the recesses of the floor. Thread by thread leaves them until there isn’t anything left, just a world of just skin and sound. Judy’s face goes determined, a small furrow to her brow, and Jen wants to run her thumb across it to smooth out the lines. 

Instead, Jen teases with her hands. Her own body grows liquid by the second, but she ducks her head and sets to her task in earnest. It’s a first but a whole lifetime of things too as Jen pushes the prospect of failure out of her mind, letting Judy grow underneath her fingers, inside her heart. 

When release is imminent, Jen can’t stand the thought of it, of not having Judy look undone underneath her, of having her against her hand. Being the asshole that she is, she eases off. Prolongs the only thing that’s felt right in a long fucking time. Judy, however, sees it as an affront. As Jen seeking retribution.

“Are you ever going to make me stop paying for Ted’s death,” Judy practically laments, says it in a way that Jen feels down to the depths of her soul. Jen stops what she’s doing fully at this. 

“Probably not,” Jen says simply with Judy against her fingers. 

She burns a look to the core of Judy. They hold each other’s intense gaze for a while until Jen can stand it no more, reaching down with her lips to take Judy’s mouth against her own. Jen kisses her hard, not quite the punishment Judy’s accusing her of but not exactly tender either. It’s all she knows with Judy, the only thing she knows how to give. 

After a few heated minutes, she pulls away to catch her breath and rests her head in the crook of Judy’s naked shoulder, letting her teeth graze across the exposed collarbone. Finishes the movement with query. “Will you ever get past what I did with Steve?”

“No,” Judy answers immediately. “By the way, this is a really fucked up sleepover.”

Jen barks out a laugh and nods sagely then, the truth already known in her gut. “Fair enough.” She picks up her pace from before, listens to Judy’s sound hit the walls and bounce back to her ears. “So, murder wives?”

Judy barks out a laugh laced with a moan, tries to rise up on her elbows but falls back, peers down at Jen’s hand between her legs. “Are you crazy?”

“About as much as you,” Jen shrugs and buries herself to the hilt of Judy. Judy’s head lolls back and Jen smiles. “Don’t act like you don’t want it.” Because Jen  _ works _ to make her want it. “You and I? We’re the same. We belong together.”

Judy comes with a wail and Jen knows without a doubt that she doesn’t want her life to look any other way but this. She’s flipped and Judy crawls up her body, stalks up her until she sits atop Jen’s hips. She leans over, brushing her nipples against her and Jen lets her own moan go loose into the air. 

“Murder wives,” Judy sighs into her mouth and starts on her mission to take Jen to the edge too. 


End file.
